


Sparring Partners

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Cute, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A sibling Caeldori and Hisame fic for iavenjqasdf set in canon, based around them training together.





	Sparring Partners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iavenjqasdf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iavenjqasdf/gifts).



A harsh clink and angry grunt split the air as Caeldori stumbled back, glaring at her brother whose steely eyes simply stared her down. With what could only be described as dumb luck, she’d poorly parried the swipe of his katana, trying to regrip the naginata that had sprung out from her hands. The blade met loudly with the iron point of her weapon she’d barely rescued from a 3ft fall to the ground. In recognition of what a close call that could have been and deathly embarrassed with the failure, the annoyance on her face was moulded into misery. The rims of her red eyes glistened with the threat of tears.

Hisame frowned, feeling quite sympathetic, but uncertain how to really manage her reaction. He understood fully her lust for immaculacy, the inherited desperation for perfection passed down by their redheaded father. When her eyes dropped from him, he took a step closer, and tried to encourage her to cheer up.  
“I’m sorry, I went a bit too rough for sparring.”  
“No, you didn’t,” As her gaze rose to meet him, her bleary eyes made themselves obvious, particularly in companionship with her quivering voice. There seemed to be something so sickening to her about embarrassing herself in front of family. Slumping onto the smooth concrete floor of the arena where they’d been training, she sighed and let her weapon fall away from her palms, this time on purpose. The naginata rolled itself away lethargically to be a few feet or so in front of her, and then froze in place.  
Hisame sat on the opposite side, a few feet away himself. It was like a line, defining how close they would allow each other to be.

For a while, things were silent, and it seemed as though Caeldori was calming back down. She looked up as her brother began to walk off, and tilted her head. Fortunately, he caught sight and called back to her, “I’m getting us refreshments, then we can train again.”  
“Alright.” When he left, she leaned back to lie on the cold concrete. It sent a shiver racing down her spine, but there was a strong sense of relief in it. Prior to losing their sparring match, they’d been practicing for a few hours, and now that she’d stopped, an ache was setting in through her muscles. While more proficient than many of her peers, Hisame matched her easily in capability and endurance, so sparring between them had been known to go on for long sessions.

When Hisame came back through, he had a double take seeing her lying on the floor, concerned that perhaps she wasn’t feeling very well. He placed the tray of tea and snacks down on a bench at the edge of the room, and crept slowly toward her, trying to subtly work out whether or not she was conscious while avoiding giving her a fright by coming at her too quickly. Try as he might to be discreet, his big sister definitely noticed him approaching, but chose to play dead. Shift. Shift. Shift. The sound of feet shuffling was getting closer.

“Caeldori…?”  
She couldn’t help herself. Restraining a smirk, she lay there still, silent, eyes shut. Her body was flawlessly immobile, holding a realistic rigidity.  
“Caeldori…” His voice betrayed an ounce of worry. Leaning down over her, he wanted to try and hear breathing. She was holding her breath. His heart was starting to race.  
“Caeldori!” He barked with urgency in his tone, cautious that maybe something serious was wrong.  
“What?!” She shouted back at him at the top of her lungs, sitting up rapidly. Hisame jumped about a meter backwards, stumbling and staring at her with big eyes. His sister on the other hand was laughing.  
“I was worried about you!” The brunette shouted back, frustration on his face, “You scared me. To think I made you tea.”

Getting up from the ground, picking up her naginata as she did, the older sibling smirked at him before sauntering over to where the tray was placed. While Hisame was still shaken and a little bit annoyed, he was glad that she’d gotten over her upset; there was a degree of tolerance necessary in putting up with her fluctuating temperament. He’d always found it interesting, the way people presented themselves to outsiders compared to with family. They could both be accused of having different public and private personalities, but Caeldori was definitely excessive in her personality changes.

With him, or their fathers, she could be fairly playful, ready to have a laugh and a joke, and was less inclined to show off. She had a fairly competitive streak with Subaki, but it was a clash of their high strung perfectionism that encouraged that. When in public, she was fairly reserved, pristine, and immaculate. She held her tongue and thought over her words time and time over before even daring to let them spill from her lips. Particularly around Nina, who he’d eventually found out she had an interest in, she over exaggerated noteworthy personality traits in order to seem interesting.

He, on the other hand, remained fairly reserved with and away from his family, but he let his guards down more around his kin. Though, despite his fairly distant personality, he didn’t view himself as unfriendly, or unwanting of company. Instead, Hisame just wasn’t sure what to do with it. Communication wasn’t his forte, and that’s what made things so easy about his sister. While she was more polished at talking with others, she still found it deeply uncomfortable, and knew she gave off pretentious vibes that often made her a little disliked. She too had a tendency to be aloof. However, she was always there for him, warm and welcoming and ready to listen, and he was the same way back, but with a more deadpan voice and a higher distaste for contact.

Lifting a cup, Caeldori sipped as she watched her little brother make his way over to the bench, and sat down when he did. They were on opposite sides of the tray, and they made an effort to sort a side of it each for their things. For people involved in conflict more often than not, they had a surprising amount of decent snacks and sweets. Organising the tray, their tastes seemed blatant when Hisame had taken all of the savoury things onto his side, and his sister took all of the confectionary. She wouldn’t eat most of it, having eyes bigger than her stomach and a sweet tooth that wasn’t so sweet when she’d had a couple of high sugar foods and got a toothache. In fact, it seemed that quite possibly she began to take the sweets with the knowledge that he really wasn’t a big fan.

“I’m only going to have one scone and then leave the rest for after we’re completely done training? Get blood sugar back up and everything,” Judging by the way she was biting her slightly sucked in right cheek, the one mouthful of scone she’d eaten had already caused a toothache.  
“Just don’t waste them, or father’ll yell at you.” Hisame barbed, smirking a touch.  
“We could just give the leftovers to dad?” Caeldori suggested, cheekily reaching over to take a pickle from his side.  
“Do we want to see him even more hyper?” He responded, swatting her hand away.  
“It would annoy father.” She tried a second time, this time going at the bowl from the other side.  
“Again, you’ll get yelled at. And knock that off, it’s rude.”  
“Can I have one then?” The redhead leered as she grumbled the request.  
“Sure, here you go,” He handed her it using a toothpick, still smirking. She delicately took it from him.  
“Thanks.”

They looked toward the middle of the arena, where they’d set up some training equipment. In all honesty, it was a waste of time getting it all out, given that they mostly fought one on one, rather than using inanimate objects. As they sat quiet, finishing their little tea break, Hisame then clicked with something and looked over at the girl beside him.  
“We’ll have to swap out our weapons, because dad and father come down here to train around now and we’ve been using real ones.”  
“Good point.” She frowned, before she fully realized what he’d said, “We need to do it now, actually!”  
The brunette winced a bit at the volume she announced her response at, but he nodded regardless, “Do you want to just call it a day on training? If you put the tray back in the mess hall, I’ll put our weapons away.”  
“Sounds good to me,” Without a moment’s hesitation, Caeldori was gone with the tray.

A sigh of relief forced itself from Hisame’s chest. He knew that she’d go with the suggestion to finish up for the day, and while he felt a bit bad for it, he knew it was better not to push themselves too much. He was starting to get tired, and he could tell she was too, she just wasn’t the type to let him know. Picking up the discarded armaments, he put them in the arena spares and started up putting the rest of the equipment away. By the time he was done, his sister had come back through with a smile.

“On my way to the mess hall, dad took the tray and ran off with it, so at least the cakes won’t go to waste,” She couldn’t help but grin, “Father’s going to have a great few hours babysitting him.”  
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” He mused, “Come on, let’s go before they come in.”  
With a surprisingly eager nod, Caeldori moved briskly to walk by his side, and they headed over to the castle to relax for the night.


End file.
